There was a donation jar on his desk, she noticed, to which she added a twenty-pound note and Sachin told her to come back any time.
Something about leaving felt like an anticlimax, and the warmth and comfort of the shed told her to stay, but what happened next made her wish she’d hurried straight out into the cold weather.
‘Doctor?’
A woman, her mum’s age, maybe a little older, but a lot more glam, commandeered her out of nowhere. Usually when people did this it was friends’ partners or non-clinical or facilities staff looking for a quick word of advice without going to the bother of seeing their own doctor, but this woman introduced herself as, ‘Carenza McDowell, property management’, in an accent that spoke of the posher English home counties almost as much as it had a soft Highland ring. ‘I’m sure you’ll recognise me from the “LET” signs all over town?’
The woman struck an imperious pose, recreating her own posters.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Alice agreed. There’d been one outside her own flat the day she arrived. ‘You’re my landlady.’ The memory of Gracie gossiping about this woman’s hallux valgus condition came back to her and she couldn’t help sneaking a glance to her feet where, if she really did suffer from bunions, they were crushed into a pair of towering designer stilettos. ‘Was there… something you needed?’ she said quickly.
‘I tried your flat but you weren’t home. Enquiries along the high street directed me towards you here.’ Carenza smiled a red lipstick smile.
How on earth did anyone know she was here? Was the whole town keeping an eye on her, tracking her every movement? This place!
The woman was talking all over Alice’s indignant thoughts. ‘You’re new in town, but you’ll soon come to know that, as well as being treasurer of the Women in Business Associationand…’ she was bobbing her blonde head in faux modesty, ‘three times winner of Property Manager of the Year, Cairngorm region, I’malsopresident of the Burns Club.’
‘Oh!’ Alice’s interest was piqued. ‘You’re in dermatology?’ It didn’t occur to her to think this might be a bit strange for a rental property mogul.
The woman almost laughed, taken aback. Something unpleasant and a little bit sneering was happening in her features. Alice had evidently made a mistake.
‘Oh, are you a burnspatient?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have leapt to…’
‘Robert Burns,’ the woman interrupted, her eyes narrow.
Nope. Alice was none the wiser.
‘Rabbie Burns? The ploughman poet? The Scottish National Bard? No?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
Carenza observed her with a look of absolute disbelief. ‘Goodness! What arethey teaching you at medical school?’
Mainly how to save lives, Alice didn’t say, however much she’d have liked to.
‘Well, don’t let on to folks around here that you haven’t a clue who their national poet is, honestly. They simply won’t forgive you.’
Alice absorbed this advice without saying anything; not that this Carenza was giving her the chance to say much.
‘As I was saying, I’m in charge of the Burns Club, now that they’ve had to allow women members. In fact, as soon as I took up my post, half the committee stepped down and I’ve had the run of things for these last three years.’ She shrugged primly, clearly seeing this as some kind of triumph and waiting for Alice’s reaction. ‘Breath of fresh air and all that.’
‘Wow?’ Alice tried.
‘Indeed. And each year we celebrate Burns Night with our traditional Burns supper and ceilidh, at which the town doctor traditionally delivers the “Address to the Haggis”.’
‘Riii-ght?’ Alice had a horrible sinking feeling.
‘And since Dr Millen is, let’s say,disinclinedthis year…’
‘Hah!’ came a loud laugh from the café counter where two women in aprons had been earwigging this whole time. ‘Weheard he told you and the rest of your Burns cronies to get knotted, did he no’?’ one of the women called out with wicked glee.
Carenza gritted her teeth, clearly used to tolerating this sort of thing from the townspeople. ‘Since the outgoing doctor declined our invitation to read this year,’ she trilled, rising above the mockery, ‘and since you’re here now, ready to take over his duties…’
Alice wanted to speak up and tell this woman that wasn’t the case at all, andpleasedon’t involve her in local things concerning haggises – she could barely cope with her workload and finding her way in a new country as it was – but Carenza was in full sail and not to be stopped.
‘…On behalf of the Cairn Dhu Burns Club Committee, I have the pleasure of extending a formal invitation to you to attend the supper as our guest of honour and deliver the Address. You’ll take it, yes?’ Carenza said this as though she was generously gifting Alice a complimentary, no-strings, champagne spa day, not roping her in to whatever nonsense this was.
‘I, uh, I don’t know. I’m not much into poetry…’ Alice began.
